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The last guardian gameplay 20163/16/2023 ![]() A voice-over extends beyond its narrative role to provide a dynamic hint system that is often too quick to reveal solutions. Traditional (read: oppressive) on-screen prompts describing the control scheme mar the opening of the game and are impossible to completely banish. ![]() These shortcomings are compounded by an uncharacteristic lack of faith in its design. The Last Guardian has made tremendous strides since then, but it’s still not quite enough to avoid illusion-breaking lapses. (Spoiler alert: like all your favorite 3D-rendered characters, he’s hollow.) Arguably, Shadow of the Colossus had an even more frustrating camera and control scheme, but that game was released eleven years ago on a far less powerful console. In The Last Guardian, the camera often gets stuck on walls or briefly shows the view from inside Trico. Nothing kills immersion more than an acute awareness of the game engine itself. The giant creature, no longer confined to a limited engagement in a boss arena, sometimes pushes the game mechanics past their limits. The puzzles play fast and loose with their own rules at a few critical points. The environment and the player’s movement through it is far more complex than in Ico. While The Last Guardian attempts to combine the strengths of its predecessors, it’s burdened by the combination of their features. Similarly, Shadow of the Colossus manages to pull off its extremely ambitious boss battles by removing nearly everything from the game except those creatures. Its environmental puzzles are mechanically and conceptually simple. It’s set in a largely rectilinear castle that the player navigates on foot. Ico was able to deliver on the promise of its design by reducing complexity in other areas. And as in Shadow of the Colossus, players will find themselves scrambling up the back of a large, often uncooperative, incredibly life-like beast (cheekily named Trico). Like Ico, it eschews a conventional HUD, save system, inventory management, power-ups, and nearly every other modern gaming convention. It features a boy attempting to escape from a mysterious castle with the help of a giant creature. In terms of both gameplay and mood, Ueda’s latest game, The Last Guardian, is a straightforward combination of its predecessors. Ueda’s next game, Shadow of the Colossus, added the bare minimum of status indicators to the screen to support its complex boss battles that required the player to clamber up and onto a succession of giant creatures. Its spare depiction of a boy attempting to escape from a vast castle with the help of a mysterious companion discarded the gameplay and interface conventions of its day, delivering an almost meditative sense of immersion. Fumito Ueda’s first game, Ico, was a beautiful, moody masterpiece.
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